Mourning Ghosts
by DealingDearie
Summary: Loki, posing as Odin, discovers a distraught Sif in the palace gardens and is ultimately surprised to realize the reason for her tears.


Loki's first month of being king of Asgard-or deceitfully posing as such-passed by without a single hitch, and he was made more arrogant by the ease with which he could fool every single citizen in the realm. It was highly satisfying to be reminded of his natural talent for trickery, and acting like Odin was generally easy.

After all, he'd known Odin his entire life, tracing his habits and his manners and learning how his mind worked. He'd done the same with all of the people that had been close to him, filing the knowledge away for a later time, for some vague, distant advantage he could draw from his memory in the future.

He had always been odd like that, or so Thor had said.

With Odin's rank, he could do anything he desired, and he usually enjoyed taking a daily stroll through the palace gardens, discreetly tending to them with his magic. Frigga had always done so, refusing the aid of groundskeepers and instead wanting to make the plants flourish all by her lonesome, and so Loki kept her legacy active; she would have wanted it that way.

It was this exact habit that caused him to be in the near vicinity when he heard a soft, hushed crying, and turned his attention to finding the source of such mournful sounds. Odin's eye patch limited his view, and he often found it beyond irritating, but he just barely tolerated it and resisted the urge to rip it off as his single eye searched hurriedly to find the person that was crying.

Finally, he spotted a sliver of crimson between two of Frigga's favorite bushes, dotted with roses of varying colors, and he walked slyly across the small expanse of grass, rounding the bushes to see Sif, sitting on a worn wooden bench, her arms wrapped about her middle as if it ached there, her eyes closed as tears streamed from them in shining, fat droplets.

Curious, all too curious, Loki carefully approached her, wizened face darkening with a concerned frown. He enjoyed the façade.

"Lady Sif," came Odin's aged voice, one that Loki had once revered for the wisdom laced within it. Sif glanced up, startled, and she sniffled, drying her eyes of her tears with the backs of her hands. She looked to her feet, then, as if ashamed, and bowed her head in respect.

"All-Father," she murmured hoarsely, her voice trembling with emotion, and she gazed up at him, swallowing nervously, as if she'd been caught in the middle of some atrocious act. He nodded in return and gestured to the seat beside her.

"May I?" She immediately allowed him room and he took a seat, eager to know why the fierce, steely Sif showed the world her tears. He'd only ever known her to cry in her youth, in the moment she'd looked into the mirror and mourned the absence of her golden locks. The sun shined gentle rays of warmth down on her, and her ebony strands caught the light and basked in it, her hair nearly glowing amber as he sat at her side.

"What ails you?" Loki asked, desperate to know, but he made sure that his voice only revealed the sharp twinge of worry. She swallowed thickly and gazed at him through blurred, reddened grey eyes, smiling just the slightest, as if it was all some kind of joke.

"Mourning losses, that's all." He nodded, but the response was far too vague for Loki to accept, so he did what he had always done-he meddled.

"The queen was a kind woman, and you two were quite close with one another; I can see why her death affects you so," he murmured kindly, unable to hide the hint of sadness that crept into his voice at the mention of his mother's passing. She blinked at him in surprise and shook her head, suddenly almost nervous as she struggled for the right words to say beneath his examining gaze.

"My tears are not for the queen, though I mourned her at the funeral." She bowed her head, as if to apologize for admitting that Frigga's death was not what brought her to tears, and he lowered his eyes and ducked his head so that he could properly see her face.

"Then why do you grieve? Thor isn't gone; he's merely away, enjoying his life with the mortal woman. He wouldn't want-"

"No," came a soft, almost inaudible murmur, her lips coated with the tears that streaked down her face as she gazed back up at him, lifting her chin, steeling herself.

"It is Loki."

He narrowed his eyes, tilting his head in feigned confusion, his heart beginning to pound within the confines of his chest, and he found that it ached there.

"I grieve his passing, for Thor said it was an honorable death." She glanced up, and he traced the guilt shining in her eyes.

"Loki redeemed himself, and my last words to him were threatening. I never got the chance to have a talk with him."

He narrowed his eyes, shaking his head as her words filled him with a sense of dread, an unnameable thing that had him scrambling for reason, struggling to make sense of the sickening weight in his stomach.

"About what?" Loki all but croaked, overcome with the suffocating emotion, his curiosity lingering as he tried futilely to calm himself. It was unnerving, how his own mind could turn against him so easily, and he clenched his hands into fists to keep their shaking at bay, hoping the woman beside him wouldn't take notice.

"Everything," she breathed, and she closed her mouth, pressing her lips together in a tight line, her eyelids falling closed as she sighed heavily, as if all her burdens were wrapped within the single breath of air, as if she could release all that had ever bothered her, as if it could be that simple.

"And now he's…_gone_."

Loki's mind spun, and he braced himself against the arm of the bench, taking deep breaths to clear his head, his heart pounding while Sif turned to him in sudden, fearful concern.

"All-Father?!" Her voice was strained from the emotion she'd shown, her cheeks stained with tears, and he turned to her, smiling to ease her worry, and she relaxed slowly, wary of something happening to him. Odin was old, and Loki would eventually fall under suspicion once the All-Father lived beyond his years, and he figured that everyone expected him to fall dead to the floor any minute now, and he smirked at the thought. He reached over and carefully patted the back of her hand, fleetingly touching the soft, milky skin stretched taut over her knuckles, and a memory came to him, one from so very many years ago, when everything had been different.

Sif's laughter could still be heard in his thoughts, her bright adolescent eyes shining in the moment that he could remember. Slowly, she stood, dusting off her skirt as he gazed up at her, silent. She looked to him, then, a small smile curving her lips and lighting her features. It was a slow, sad smile, the ghost of what it used to be, the phantom of the happiness she'd often shown him in their youth, and she blinked away the tears in her eyes as she sniffled.

"But he'd want it that way, with things left unsaid." She swallowed thickly, reaching around her to tighten the ponytail that had let loose a few stray strands of hair.

"He'd want to be immortal, forever in my memories." She bowed to him, turning before she had even straightened, eager to leave and seek out solitude. Loki could remember when once she had sought his chambers, searching for solace in a person as familiar as her own heart, and he sighed, his shoulders feeling far heavier than they had when he'd first entered the gardens.

Turning to look beside him, he stared at the rose bushes, seeing Frigga's image tending to them, her eyes content and her smile loving, her touch gentle as she leaned forward to smell the sweet aroma of the petals, her face so serene that it almost hurt him, and then he saw Sif, as she had been so many years ago, her golden locks flowing past her in the breeze as she ran between the towering, lush trees, bright eyes filled with the desire to be adventurous, to be more than how she was perceived.

Loki was young again, in that deep, hidden memory, curled up atop the bench with his feet tucked beneath him, a novel gripped tightly in his hands as he looked up, angry at the disturbance.

He caught sight of her and his eyes rounded, and as she turned to smile at him, his heart had never pounded so fast.

**Please R&R! Feedback of any kind is always appreciated! ;)**


End file.
